All India Protest Day on 10th March, 2016 on 12 point charter

New Delhi: All the Central Trade Unions met on 27th January 2016 and resolved to continue their protest action against the anti labour policies of the Central and some State Govts. Central Trade Unions decided to observe 10th March, 2016 as All India Protest Day against Govt.indifference to the 12 point charter of demands and its unwillingness to restart discussions for working out concrete steps for resolution of the issues.

The Central Trade Unions reviewed the drastically deteriorating conditions of work and life of the working people and govt. going ahead with labour law amendments, disinvestment of PSUs and allowing FDI in strategic sectors. The Govt., it appears, does not want to wait for legislating these anti worker labour law amendments, it is taking away rights of workers by way of executive orders and directing state govts to carry out such pro-management amendments. The trade unions condemned one such directive issued by the Secretary, Ministry of Labour and Employment, Govt. of India on this 12th January granting exemption to so called start up enterprises from inspection and application of 9 major labor law legislations, thereby legitimizing the violations.

The Central Trade Unions took note of and extend solidarity to the sectoral struggles of workers/employees in Banks, Defence, Coal, Port and Docks and Telecommunications sectors, the anganwadi workers on their respective demands and also the Central Govt. employees including Railways resolve to launch action against retrograde recommendations of 7th Central Pay Commission. They also expressed their serious concern over extremely harsh punishment of “double life imprisonment” given by the Court to eight workers of Pricol Ltd., Coimbatore and appealed to all workers to extend help and solidarity.

The Central Trade Unions also decided to organize massive National Convention of Workers in Talkatora Stadium, New Delhi in the last week of March, 2016 to decide about the next course of united action programme.

Fight against anti labour policies will continue. The Central Trade Unions directed its constituents to prepare jointly for protest action on 10th March, 2016. They also appealed to independent employees/workers/unions and federations to participate in the protest action against the offensive of the Govt. against workers and common people.

The Central Trade Unions, including BMS, INTUC, HMS, AITUC, CITU have demanded to the central government that the minimum wage for the contract workers should be Rs. 18,000, as calculated and recommended by the VII Central Pay Commission. They submitted a 14 Point Memorandum to the Finance Minister Arun Jaitely on 4th January 2016, when the latter met them for pre-budget consultations.

The CTUs demanded to the Finance Minister that the ‘Hire and Fire’policy should be abandoned and there should be job-security for the workers. They strongly opposed the policy of arbitrarily amending the labour acts without consulting the CTUs. They pointed out that no labour amendment law should be moved with out consultation with and consent of the unions.

Further they demanded that the ‘ease of doing business’ should not be connected with the labour laws.

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Lakhs of tea garden workers and employees went on a historic strike in North Bengal defying the tea garden owners and the TMC’s fatwa not to join the strike convened by the joint forum of the tea garden employees including the CITU led Chia Kaman Majdoor Union. The strike call was fully successful in the over 260 tea gardens out of a total of 276 tea gardens spread across Darjeeling hills, terai and dooars. Baring a few handful few which clocked partial shutdown as to the presence of TMC ‘s union all the other tea gardens remained closed as CITU State Secretary Dipak Dasgupta rushed to North Bengal to hand over economic support to families of famished tea garden workers of the state. At the call of the major trade unions all the other unions of various industrial sectors too demonstrated in the state in support of the Strike call given by the tea sector trade Unions. It can be recalled that yesterday at the call of the Joint forum of tea garden workers, the tea workers observed relay hunger strike at 44 places in the region. The strike, convened by a Joint Forum of 24 different tea workers unions, comes against the backdrop of the death of 22 workers in the tea gardens of north Bengal since May 2015 due to malnutrition and diseases caused by hunger.

The W. Bengal Government should immediately act for discussion and settlement of the issues of the tea garden workers.

LPF, SEWA, UTUC had informed of their inability to attend due to preoccupations and has agreed to the decisions.

The joint meeting of the Central Trade Unions held at INTUC Office at New Delhi on 30th September 2015 reviewed in details the countrywide general strike of 2nd September 2015.

CTUOs congratulated the working people all over the country to stage the biggest ever general strike on 2nd September against the anti-people and anti-worker policies of the Govt. CTUOs al a expressed gratitude to people from all walks of life for extending wholehearted support to the strike action by the working class.

CTUOs expressed serious concern over the repressive measures let lose on the striking workers by the governments/managements in different places throughout the country. CTUOs opposed suspension of 15 workers in BHEL, Hardwar for taking part in the strike e and demanded immediate withdrawal of the suspension orders.

CTUOs denounced the brutal repressions on ASHA workers in Telangana striking continuously since 2nd September 2015 and demands upon the Telangana government to sort out the issues in consultation with the unions instead of pouncing upon them

CTUOs call upon the working class to keep themselves prepared for further united struggle if the government does not respond positively to the 12 point demands of the workers. The CTUOs also urge upon the government to respond to the message given by the countrywide general strike in true spirit and immediately resume negotiation with CTUOs on the 12 point charter of demands and implementation of the consensus recommendations of successive Indian Labour Conferences (43rd to 46th).

CTUOs call upon the workers and trade unions of all affiliations to widen and strengthen the unity of the working people realized through long process of struggles including strikes and prepare for ensuing phase of united struggle on the just demands of the workers and the people. (Courtesy: Ganashakti)

The full secretariat of CITU met in Delhi on 23- 24 September to have a preliminary review of the country wide general strike on 2nd September 2015 and formulate future tasks to carry the movement forward. – out of the total – secretariat members from all over the country attended the meeting. The initial assessment of the central trade unions that the strike was massive and unprecedented was endorsed by the full secretariat of CITU. It also affirmed that the withdrawal of BMS had no impact on the strike.

The grand success of the strike is an unambiguous proof of the growing anger and discontent of the working class towards the policies being pursued by the Modi led NDA government at the centre. It was also a strong signal that the working class was not ready to buy the argument, put forward by BMS for backing out from the strike, that the BJP led government has taken positive measures on several points in the charter of demands. Reports from several states have shown that in many states the BMS members and even many local leaders of BMS were not happy with the decision of the BMS leadership to withdraw from the strike. In several states, they did not take back the strike notices that they have given jointly with the other trade unions. Many have openly expressed their dissatisfaction at the decision of their leadership which they felt was not correct. The anger among the workers against the government policies and the impact created by the unity of all trade unions and the joint campaign was such that in most of the states, local BMS leadership could not come out strongly against the strike. In some states it was the RSS cadres who openly opposed the strike. Many BMS members and even some local leaders in several states have reportedly joined the strike. It was apparent that BMS withdrew from the strike at the behest of RSS, the head of its parivar, which has declared that it was satisfied with the performance of the government, which it said was on the right path. This certificate was given from the meeting of the Samanvay Samiti of the RSS, which started on the same day as the strike. The workers obviously did not endorse this certificate.

A very important feature of this strike, noted by the CITU secretariat, was the participation of the workers both in the organised and unorganised sectors, who were not members of any trade union. It is estimated that around 40% of those who participated in the strike were totally non unionised. In many states including Madhya Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Haryana, and several others, the workers spontaneously reacted to the strike call wherever the campaign reached them.

This was particularly visible among the road transport workers who overwhelmingly joined the strike surpassing all expectations. The sustained campaign of the All India Road Transport Workers’ Federation (AIRTWF) affiliated to CITU, the district and state committees of CITU and the joint all India strike of road transport workers on 30th April 2015 contributed immensely in exposing the dangerous impact of the so called Road Safety Bill on all sections of road transport workers, including state road transport, private road transport and auto rickshaw drivers etc. An overwhelming majority of road transport workers who participated in the strike were not at all unionised. They spontaneously reacted to the leaflets and booklets printed by the CITU and AIRTWF, joined the strike and invited the CITU leadership to address their meetings. In some states, they photocopied the materials and circulated among themselves. In some states, unionised state road transport corporation workers who had never joined any strike till now, also participated in the strike this time.

Similar response was also observed in many industrial areas in many states. In some states, CITU committees served strike notice on all factories in the industrial cluster irrespective of whether it had affiliated unions or not. Significantly all the workers in these industrial clusters participated in the strike. It was noted that in many industrial clusters where the workers did not belong to any union, all the workers joined the strike en masse. Similarly non unionised industrial workers in states like Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, and Haryana etc also joined the strike in large numbers.

While all the twelve points in the charter of demands were important, some issues like amendment to labour laws, minimum wages, equal wage and benefits to contract workers, recognition of ‘scheme workers’ as workers with all attendant benefits, price rise and disinvestment struck a chord with large sections of the working class.

CITU secretariat also expressed its dismay and severe resentment at the way the government chose to ignore the anger of the working class expressed through this massive strike. Though it was compelled to let the Land Acquisition Ordinance to lapse and keep the GST bill pending due to various political reasons, the BJP led government is going full steam with its project of labour law amendments. The Prime Minister reportedly directed the Labour Ministry not to lose the momentum. Intense preparations are being made to get the Labour Code Bills passed at the earliest to satisfy the domestic and foreign corporations that the ‘ease of doing business’ in India has improved.

In this situation, the CITU secretariat decided that this challenge could be met by the working class only by keeping the momentum of its struggle too intact. The working class cannot afford to be content and rest with the success of this strike. The campaign among the workers must continue. This strike proved that workers respond when we are able to reach them with concrete issues, demands and programmes. In view of this, such efforts must be multiplied several times to reach all those multitudes of workers whom this campaign could not reach. It called upon all its committees and cadres to continue the countrywide campaign and agitation on the 12 point charter of demands through October and November with particular focus on the pro corporate labour law amendments, minimum wage of Rs 15000, same wage to contract workers as the regular workers doing the same job, recognition to scheme workers as workers with attendant benefits, containing price rise and universalise PDS and stopping disinvestment.

The myth propagated by the government and the BMS that seven out of the twelve points in the charter of demands of the trade unions have been addressed by the government should be effectively exposed from our independent platform during this campaign. A detailed note debunking the government’s claims would be prepared by the CITU centre, which should be utilised for taking the message to wider sections of workers.

CITU secretariat also called upon its various industrial federations as well as committees to take the initiative to take up militant sectoral struggles on the specific demands of the workers in that particular sector wherever possible jointly or independently. Sectoral joint struggles have already been planned in some sectors like the anganwadi employees, electricity employees etc.

The importance of bringing all the non unionised workers who participated in the strike, particularly the road transport workers, into the organisational fold was also emphasised by the CITU secretariat. It reiterated the importance of paying special attention to organise the workers in the road transport sector and the industrial workers by allotting suitable cadres.

While noting the key role played by CITU committees and cadres in ensuring the success of the strike, the CITU secretariat also pointed out that this was not reflected in the CITU membership. It called upon all its committees to simultaneously ensure that the membership base of CITU is also expanded during the October – November campaign, to reflect its true strength.

The importance of developing closer relationship with the people and involve them in the struggles in such sectors where their interests were linked with the interests of the industry and the employees was also stressed by the CITU secretariat. Efforts have already been initiated in some sectors like ICDS and electricity. The difficulties that common people would face due to the privatisation and dismantling of the road transport sector should also be explained to the common people and their support sought in fighting privatisation of road transport.

The huge participation in solidarity actions, of peasants and agricultural workers and of members of AIDWA, SFI and DYFI in several states, was an important feature of this strike. The call of CITU to observe an all India Day on 30th July 2015 in solidarity with the peasants demands including its campaign against the Land Acquisition Ordinance had a very positive impact. The CITU secretariat decided to take this forward and called upon all its state committee to observe one day during the October November campaign to focus the agrarian crisis and in solidarity with the demands of the peasants and agricultural workers.

CITU secretariat warned the working class of the dangers of the divisive forces which sought to disrupt the unity and divide the working class on the basis of different kinds of identity. The present global crisis is having impact on the country despite the denial of the government. It is bringing into focus several problems which cannot be solved by the capitalist system. The Patidar agitation in Gujarat demanding reservations to the Patels, a well to do section is a reflection of one such problem. It exposes the myth of the ‘Gujarat model’ of development where youth are not able to find decent employment opportunities. In effect this is a movement for the withdrawal of reservations for the SC/ ST and backward sections. This is influencing sections of middle class employees and others as well.

The communal forces are utilising various occasions to spread their divisive ideology. The government itself is carrying out the directives of the RSS to push its ideology and line in the fields of history, science, education, culture etc and communalise the various government institutions. These pose a serious threat to the unity of the working class and hamper its ability to intensify united struggles against the onslaughts of the ruling classes on its basic rights. CITU called upon the working class to be vigilant against all such moves and protect its unity which alone would enable it to strengthen united struggles and protect its interests in the coming days.

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The 46th Indian Labour Conference held on 21st July 2015 at New Delhi has decided that the labour laws to be enacted should be first approved by the tripartite body of Government, employers’ organisations and trade unions. The Labour Minister, Bandaru Dattathreya, who presided over the meeting stated that such tripartite conference will be held shortly.

In this scenario, the labour bills proposed by the government like Wage Code Bill, Small Factories Act, Industries Code Bill, Factories Act, Child Labour Bill etc. will have to be discussed in the tripartite body, before they are presented in the Parliament.

With regard to the increase in the Bonus, no decision could be taken due to the strong opposition from the employers.

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi met the leaders of the 11 Central Trade Unions on 19th July 2015 and gave assurance that their 12 Point demands will be considered by the Government. But no definite assurance was given on accepting the demands including the minimum wage of Rs. 15,000 for contract workers, on social obligations etc.

The Central TUs have given a call for complete strike on 2nd September 2015 on the 12 point demands which they have been raising for the last few years and on which the government have not taken any favourable decision. The independent federations of CG employees, state government employees, PSUs and private – all workers are going to participate in the strike which is expected to be the biggest strike in the country so far.

Assurances of the government can be believed only when they are implemented.

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Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU), the militant organisation of the Indian working class completes 45 years of its existence on 30th May 2015. Founded on 30th May 1970 at the Calcutta All India Conference, parting from the All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC), which was treading the revisionist path, the new organisation struggled forward against the attack both from the government as well as from the parent organisation.

As stated above, CITU was formed in the All India Conference held t Calcutta from 28th to 31st May 1970. Com. B.T.Ranadive and Com. P.Ramamoorthy were the first President and General Secretary, respectively. During the last 45 years the posts of President / Secretary have been held by veteran trade union leaders like Samar Mukherjee, E.Balanandan, M.K.Pandhe, Chittabrata Majumdar and Mohd. Amin. The present President is Com. A.K.Padmanabhan and General Secretary Com. Tapan Sen. All these leaders were / are top leaders of the CPI(M).

I feel honoured to remember that I could meet all these leaders, get their guidance in the union activities and also had/have a person to person relation, except Com. P.Ramamoorthy, with whom I have met only a few times at the time of All India Conventions held at New Delhi.

CITU has taken the initiative for uniting the working class and bringing all the 11 Central Trade Unions in India together on the demands of the workers and to fight joint struggles. The latest is the call of the CTUs for a one day general strike on 2nd September 2015.

On this 45th anniversary of the CITU, let us pledge to continue the struggles for the emancipation of the toiling masses and for a better world for the working class.

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Com.A.K.Padmanabhan, President, CITU, has issued the following statement:

CITUSupports the Strike in BSNL

CITUcongratulates the 2.25 lakhs of employees of BSNL, including 40,000 executives
for their successful countrywide united strike for 48 hours on 21st and 22nd April
2015.
The strike call given by the Forum of BSNL Unions/Associations, an umbrella
organization of all the unions and association of employees and executives. It was after
4 months of their strike notice, they have gone on strike.
The issues raised by the Forum are the issues of saving the public sector telecom
enterprise which is being derided of all support from the Government and at the same
time the private players in the sector are favoured and supported.
It is unfortunate that the employees of a telecom PSU are forced to go on a 48 hour
strike for procurement of equipments like mobile lines, broadband modem etc. All the
demands including filling up of vacancies are aimed at strengthening the enterprise.
It is condemnable that the concerned Minister or the Department Secretary did not
even call the unions for a discussion on their demands.
CITU urges the Government to take necessary steps to save this crucial PSU. CITU
assures all support to the employees and executives in their struggle in defence of the
PSU and calls upon them to be prepared for united actions of all public sector
employees in defence of public sector undertakings in the country.
(A.K.PADMANABHAN)
President CITU

New Delhi, January 2: Centre of Indian Trade Unions strongly denounces the BJP led NDA government resorting to the ordinance route to bulldoze opposition and push its anti people and anti worker policies, the latest being the ordinance amending the provisions of the Land Acquisition Act. The amendment to the Land Acquisition Act exempting consent and social impact assessment for acquiring land is nothing but an unconcealed measure to favour the corporates and real estate barons surrendering the genuine interests of the peasantry and land owners.

A few days back the BJP government reissued the ordinance on coal privatisation. It resorted to the ordinance route to raise the FDI in insurance in the face of stiff opposition from the employees and all the trade unions and despite the fact that it was not able to get the bill passed in Parliament.

Since coming to power this BJP government has repeatedly demonstrated its zeal to push through the neoliberal policies totally unconcerned about the interests of the nation and the common people. This was once again displayed with its decision to hike the excise duty on oil preventing the petrol and diesel prices from coming down despite their steep fall in international markets.

CITU condemns this Ordinance Raj and demands a reversal of these anti national ordinances and policies.

CITU calls upon the entire working class movements of the country to intensify the united struggle against such anti national and anti people policies. It extends solidarity to the struggles of the insurance employees and coal workers and totally supports the six Unions call for strike from 6th January 2015.